Some
of the raft-ups are already ten boats across by the time the mid-July
sun sears Three Mile Harbor. Bikinis and beer bellies abound as boats
snake along the channel single-file and jockey for anchoring space amid
the long-taken mooring balls. The annual fireworks will explode over the
water in just eight hours, and each captain wants the best view of one
of New York’s most exclusive enclaves: East Hampton, Long Island.

It’s
a scene for boats to be seen, including a stunning blue-hulled 1976 Donzi
launch and the 1929 motoryacht Belle, a beautifully restored, wooden
77-footer that calls Newport, Rhode Island, home. As the big boats vie
for room to drop their hooks, dinghies meander through the maze with skippers
pointing out the profiles of their dreams. Few fail to crane their necks
for a better look at the 1971 Burger Lady Elizabeth, which at just
over 81 feet LOA is the grandest dame at the show before the show.

The
captain of the Viking motoryacht Crown Jewel, on the hook to starboard
of Lady Elizabeth, can't resist striking up a bow-to-bow chat with
Capt. Mike Nesbitt about the tight squeeze. Nesbitt, a slow-talkin'
Southerner, responds with a grin as big as his home state of Texas. Crown
Jewel's skipper says he’ll be careful not to swing into our
classic beauty should the wind change so much as a hair.

"Well,"
Nesbitt hollers back, offering to do his part to avoid bumping, "this
just looks like a Grey Poupon boat. We’re really a French’s
yella."

I
couldn’t have said it better myself. A week aboard Lady Elizabeth
is an experience in style—the elegant kind embodied by the dapper
doyenne's pretty lines, and the endearing kind that radiates from
crew working hard to make sure guests feel at home. Whether in New England,
where I cruised courtesy of her owner, or in the Bahamas, where she is
scheduled to spend her first winter charter season following extensive
renovations, Lady Elizabeth will charm her six guests with good
fun and good folks—and at a good price to boot. She's priced
at a base rate of $15,500 per week, which includes the owner's 12-foot
inflatable and Nesbitt's center-console Dusky. "We should
be a very attractive price," he says, "especially with a 25-foot
tender."

My
charter party was the first to spend time aboard, just a few weeks after
the revamped yacht's debut at the June charter yacht show in Newport.
The excitement about Lady Elizabeth's rebirth was palpable.
As we cruised at 11 knots off Block Island, Nesbitt took two charter bookings
via cellphone in just one hour.

Lady
Elizabeth started out as Encore I three decades ago and has since been
through five owners. The second changed her name to Firefly, and the next
two called her Isabella. Each added his own touches, which gives her the
kind of idiosyncrasies that can take a new captain a while to decipher.
As Isabella, those idiosyncrasies combined with half-finished renovations
and rotating skippers to give the boat a reputation for breakdowns and
problems. "When the owner got tired of paying for the boat, he also
got tired of paying for the crew," Nesbitt explains. "They
walked off in the summer of 2001. There were already a bunch of charters
lined up, and the captains who came onboard couldn't figure out
the boat in time."